Katter’s Australian Party leader and Member for Traeger Robbie Katter says the state government has an opportunity to reform the state\u2019s broken regional rail system after four of the five Queensland Rail board members were moved on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s promising to see a wide-ranging clean out at the top of Queensland Rail \u2013 the proof, however, will be in getting change on the ground, where the real hard workers are,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m onto my sixth Transport Minister now, of both major Brisbane parties, yet rail operations in the North West have remained in a state of paralysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSince 2011, we have seen a 38 per cent decrease in freight on the rail, and this has led Queensland Rail to simply jack up the price they charge the remaining users of the line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cQueensland Rail are aware of the fundamental issue, and importantly its fix; throw the QCA (Queensland Competition Authority) guidelines in the bin and incentivise bulk ore onto rail and off the road. This should particularly be the case for bulk ore.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Mount Isa line is one of the only lines in Queensland that attracts QCA intervention and full cost recovery mechanisms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe QCA is supposed to be the \u2018economic regulator\u2019 and they say they \u2018help prevent monopoly businesses from inappropriately using their market power\u2019. Well, the bean counters in Brisbane are presiding over the systematic destruction of the North West\u2019s transport artery,\u201d Mr Katter said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe absolute irony is the organisation tasked to be the economic regulator is regulating away any future economy for our region! I am calling on the new board members of Queensland Rail to have a root and branch cleanout of upper management \u2013 just like the board has had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere is a fantastic opportunity for Queensland Rail to move from an organisation of \u2018no\u2019 and \u2018it\u2019s too hard\u2019 to being a genuine economic driver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe opportunities, and desperate need for rail across our vast state are endless. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFrom ore, to cattle, and tourism. All we need are real leaders in QR, not stale bureaucrats looking for any excuse to hit innovation on the head. More bulk freight off our crumbling roads, and a proactive attitude to incentivising new and return users \u2013 and not through lazy subsidies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The four new appointees, who join continuing board member Loretta Lynch, are Andrew Wellington (chair), Lisa Hewitt, Julian Haber and Wendy McMillan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Robbie Katter says the overhaul of the Queensland Rail board should see some positive action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":270776,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[167,47],"tags":[987,17717,7465,17850],"class_list":["post-270775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-queensland-rail","category-rail-news","tag-brisbane","tag-cloncurry","tag-queensland","tag-robbie-katter"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=270775"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":270777,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270775\/revisions\/270777"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/270776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=270775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=270775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=270775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}